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May 27, 2009

News On Ortiz, Smoltz, Lester

Look, let me make something clear so you guys don't ask me the whole time about me hitting sixth. I started hitting third here a little bit after I got here. If you're hitting third, you must be swinging the bat good. The manager moved me to sixth because we got guys swinging the bat good, right? Now, I've got to work my way up, right? That's about it. I'm an employee. I follow orders.

Jason Bay:

Ultimately, you only hit in a certain spot in the lineup once and then you're hitting in different situations. I think it's a good idea to just try something different. You're taking the same approach whether you're hitting second or ninth, but sometimes you're just looking for that magical something to turn things around.

Francona explained the move:

When we came back from Seattle, because David had sat for three days, I wanted him to get back in there and see if we could get him hot. Then when it didn't look like it was going real well last week, I just didn't think it was in his best interests to do it at home against the Mets -- to me, that's not helping, that's almost placing blame on somebody. ... I wanted to wait until I got on the road.

Tito added that he hopes Ortiz "doesn't feel like he's got to carry the team."

have unwittingly boxed themselves into a corner ... [It's] hard to shake the feeling yesterday that the Sox and Ortiz both moved themselves uncomfortably close to the cliff.

But what choice did the team have? They have handled this issue fairly conservatively, treating Ortiz with the respect he has earned since 2003. They kept him in the third spot. They gave him a weekend off. Now he's hitting 6th -- that should stay the same with Mike Lowell in the lineup, with Lowell-Varitek-SS batting 7-8-9.

I'm assuming that "the cliff" McAdam is talking about is cutting ties with Ortiz -- and we are nowhere near that now. If Ortiz keeps hitting under .200, the next step would be playing him only three or four times a week. But with him hitting in the lower half of the lineup, he should have plenty of time to work out his troubles.

I gave up five runs. What else is there to say about it? Made one pitch. One pitch cost me three runs. ...

I think it's just not executing pitches. Tonight it was a 1-0 fastball in. If he takes it, it ends up being a ball. I don't know what to tell you guys. I don't really have any answers for you. Five days I get the ball again. That's where I go.

26 comments:

Let's just assume that moving Ortiz down in the order and cutting his playing time doesn't work, and at the trade deadline he is still hitting sub-200.

Do the Sox trade him then? There would surely be plenty of options for hitting from teams that are out of it (like Matt Holliday) by then.

I am in no way saying that I WANT the Sox to trade Ortiz (hell, he's been a God-send for the Sox), but if the A's dangle Holliday for prospects (which would most likely include Laptop or Bowden, possibly both) and Ortiz can be sent to a 3rd team to make the deal work, because the A's probably wouldn't want a struggling hitter in their already anemic offense...should the Sox take the deal?

Well, first of all, where do you trade him to? I don't think you can find any GMs that just didn't follow baseball for the first half of the season and assume they're getting 2007 Papi. Or 2008, for that matter. And besides (maybe this should be the "first of all"), no, I don't think they would trade him even if they had an option to. A long DL stint and a "maybe later, even next year" seem more likely to me.

I'm with Ofer on this one as well. With how patiently they're handling Ortiz and how patient they've been with guys in the past (FY, etc.) - if you were the ask me if he'll get traded by NEXT year's deadline, I'd still be skeptical.

The other thing about Holliday is that he's a free agent after this season and Boras is his agent, so you're going to have to pony up the dough if you want him beyond this season whether you trade two good young starting pitchers for three months of his services or not.

As for trading Papi, I don't even think it's an option. Who would want him? What other team wants to take on $20M in payroll to add a guy who can't play defense, but that's OK because he can't hit either?

(I'm all about Big Papi, so I don't want him going anywhere, just to be clear.)